7.04 "Orpheus" Episode Guide

Contents

Précis

Teal'c's dependence on Tretonin is changing him in ways he didn't expect and he is struggling with his identity as a Jaffa. Daniel is also struggling to come to terms with his descension. Sharing Kel'No'Reem with Teal'c, Daniel has a vision of Teal'c's son Rya'c and mentor Bra'tac trapped in a Jaffa death camp and realizes he did nothing to help them.

SciFi.com Official Summary

During a close-quarters withdrawal from another planet, Colonel Jack O'Neill sees Major Carter and Daniel Jackson jump through the Stargate into Stargate Command. Teal'c follows a few seconds behind them, with a Jaffa on his tail. The alien soldier is shot dead by General Hammond's men—but not before the Jaffa has injured Teal'c, who collapses with a large, smoking wound in his gut.

Teal'c recovers in the infirmary. Without his tretonin—the drug that replaced his lost symbiote, which granted healing powers—he would be dead. Dr. Fraiser informs him that the Jaffa's blast passed directly through his empty symbiote pouch, doing damage to his spine. Teal'c will have to undergo intense physical therapy to make a complete recovery.

Meanwhile, Daniel is nagged by a memory he can't pin down. He can remember everything from before he died, but nothing from after he ascended.

Teal'c eventually recovers and is pronounced fit for duty. Yet he says he is not ready. He explains that he is kek, which in Jaffa means both weak and dead—for if one is weak, one might as well be dead.

Daniel asks Teal'c to help him kelnoreem, hoping that the Jaffa meditation technique may help him remember whatever it is that's trying to break through. It works—Daniel sees Teal'c's son, Ry'ac, and Teal'c's mentor, Bratac, enslaved by the Goa'uld while trying to recruit fellow rebel Jaffa.

Carter surmises that if Bratac's and Ry'ac's capture happened before Daniel retook human form, whatever supply of tretonin that Bratac had would be almost depleted by now. They need to find the planet where the two are being held. Teal'c requests that Rak'nor—the Jaffa rebel SG-1 first encountered in "The Serpent's Venom" and most recently in in "Allegiance"—be brought to SGC.

Upon looking at drawings Daniel has made from his recovered memory—"a Naquada refiner near a Ha'tak-class vessel under construction on a planet with two moons"—Rak'nor identifies the planet as Erebus, currently under the rule of Goa'uld System Lord Ba'al. Since Jaffa unwilling to serve the Goa'uld are brought to Erebus to be worked to death, it was a logical place for Bratac and Ry'ac to find recruits.

Daniel suddenly remembers being on Erebus in ascended form when Bratac and Ry'ac were captured. But he was powerless to interfere. Carter finds a coded signal received from Jaffa rebels three months ago, and Daniel identifies it as the code to deactivate the force field protecting the Erebus gate. Carter synthesizes it and SG-1—including Teal'c—as well as SG-2 and SG-3 embark on a rescue mission.

That night, Teal'c and Rak'nor infiltrate the prison camp, locate Ry'ac and Bratac's tent and administer tretonin to the dying Bratac. But while doing so, they're captured and tortured. O'Neill, needing a strategic distraction, has Daniel and Carter teleport up to the Goa'uld mothership and rig its antigravity platform to blow.

Ry'ac and Rak'nor spread word throughout the camp to be ready to fight when the time is right. But Ry'ac is spotted away from his work station and sentenced to die. Teal'c offers himself instead. The prison commander accepts. He is about to execute Teal'c when Carter's device goes off.

The Goa'uld ship comes crashing down. Teal'c engages the camp commander in hand to hand combat and snaps the commander's neck. O'Neill and his soldiers lay down mortar fire and pick off enemy soldiers. As the prisoners revolt, Bratac, his spirit returned, joins the fight. The camp is liberated and the prisoners go to join the rebels at the Alpha Site on a planet whose Stargate address the Goa'uld do not have.